Inadequate Humility

What is humility? What does it look like? What does it truly mean to be humble? How about prideful? Is it not easy to sport a prideful person 100 miles away? Do you consider yourself to be ‘humble’? For many of us being humble looks like restraint when we do something awesome. We find ourselves deflecting praise, just so we don’t look like we are full of ourselves. As Christians we are called to live humble lives. This can be interpreted in a multitude of fashions. To some it may look like living within their means, others it may mean diverting all attention all attention away from ones self. It could look like a quite life that does not get in the way of anyone else around us. With all these different interpretations what does it mean to live a humble life in the Christian walk?

Another interpretation of Christian humility in which I find prevalent in Christian culture today is a mindset of inadequacy. We have been taught we are terrible sinners, we crucified Jesus and continue to crucify him each day of our wretched lives. We begin to believe these teachings, and we start to become emotionally distraught over these ‘truths’. We begin to feel like the worst sinner, like Paul, we feel like no matter what we do it is nothing better than filthy rags. I hear so many people, almost hopelessly say I am nothing without Christ, as if they truly believed they were nothing. In reality we are all nothing without Christ, he holds the universe together, he chooses to let it go of course we are going to be nothing.

When people say they are nothing without Christ, I feel like there is a great emphasis on the first clause, and what people are really saying is they believe they are truly worth nothing...and I wish I could be empowered to be better than what I am right now, and I look to this ‘hope’ in Christ that is supposed to make me something but all I hear is how worthless I am. We find ourselves focused so much on the first clause of that statement when we sing songs like ‘How Great the Father’s Love for Us, we find ourselves continually beating ourselves up because of the guilt we feel for it was our sin that nailed him to the cross. Praise and worship becomes a funeral instead of a celebration, instead of living in the freedom and joy the second clause, we choose to believe that we are inadequate for God to truly love us and redeem us. We have had it driven into us so much that we are nothing, we expect nothing less for ourselves. We hear sermons to be humble and that humility looks like sacrificing ourselves, laying our lives down for Christ, doing his will over our will, and most of all never being prideful because that as we all know is one of the most deadly and despairing sins of all, it made the top seven.

What I would like to suggest is we have a distorted picture of what pride looks like. We think, if pride is thinking highly about oneself, then the opposite of pride is thinking as lowly as possible about oneself and if humility is the antidote for pride then we must do all we can to achieve the opposite idea of pride. This thinking leading us to feel inadequate, for if we felt we were worth something we would flirting with pride. The problem with this kind of thinking is it doesn’t work this way. We are so concerned with trying to be the opposite of prideful we miss that humility is not designed to be the opposite of pride, but it is to be the antidote, or cure for pride.

I would also like to suggest that the feeling of inadequacy is yet just another form of pride. When you break down pride and ask what pride really is you find that pride is nothing more than a false self-image which causes us to focus upon ourselves more than others. It is really easy to spot pride in someone who has a more than elevated self-image, this what we are typically used to identifying as pride. But the same thing could be true of a person who has a less than human, or worthless self-image. Both are perfect examples of pride, and both leave people thinking more about their elevated or inadequate self than caring for the needs of others.

It is unfortunate more Christians fit the mold of pride while all in the name of humility and obedience to Christ. It breaks my heart and Christ’s heart when we choose to justify our feeling of inadequacy in his name.

So you maybe asking what is humility then if it is not the opposite of pride? What is humility when I find out my humility is more pride than anything? How is humility the antidote or cure for the pride in my life?

Let me use the apostle Paul for an example in answering these questions, especially since we use Paul the most in justifying our inadequacies. First Paul did say, “I am the worst of sinners,” but he also said it was for that very reason Christ died, and Christ did not remain dead for if he did our faith would be useless, but instead he was resurrected from the dead bringing life to all who believe in Him. He also says that, ‘no one is righteous, no not one’ giving us grounds to justify our inadequacies again. But let me suggest that Paul’s greater point and focus was in his confidence he had in Christ. Paul uses the resurrection to declare the truth of the gospel around the world. We seem him beaten, flogged, stoned, shipwrecked, naked and imprisoned, yet do we ever see Paul utter a single word of complaint? Do we see Paul ever look at his suffering and feel bad about himself? Does Paul ever make a statement about being inadequate without following it up with the joy, power, and confidence he has in Jesus Christ.

Let me suggest the humble life is the life that is confident in Jesus Christ. It is a life that does not allow ones circumstances in life to define them, but it is a life that defines life’s circumstances. It is a life which seeks to see the work of Christ in ever circumstance. It is a live in which is defined by the words of Christ. It is a life that is worthy to be called righteous, fruitful. We are called to live a life of royalty, with the understanding the only way to the thrown room is through a life full of suffering while remaining confident in the Truth. The identity we have in Christ is true for all people, humility is being able to accept his identity for ourselves and remain confident in His ways and his truth.

Do you find yourself inadequately humble? Repent now, find joy and confidence in who God says you are. You are a chosen generation, a royal generation, the crown and glory of creation, the light of the world, and dearly beloved. The only question will be if you will humble yourself and live in the unchanging truth and identity in which we were created for.

dis-ci-pline |ˈdisəplin|

Discipline. When I first think or hear this word, thoughts of punishment, pain, and embarrassment come racing to my mind. In school, with a boss, or the law everyone would talk about discipline with a negative tone. The thought of discipline is annoying. No one wants to be disciplined, and when do receive discipline, it never seems to change the person. So I really began to despise the word, and it always seemed to be connoted with punishment, there was no happy or exciting discipline. So whenever anyone even began to start talking about discipline I would just shut them of, it was the same speech every time. Do good, follow the rules, don’t be insubordinate towards the system. But is this what discipline is really about? Is it really about punishment avoidance? Is it about a bunch of rules that has to be followed?

A problem of dissonance occurs when we approach discipline from the described perspective. Being disciplined in school becomes about following the rules and doing what the teacher tells you. In religion discipline begins to look like a long list of impossible rules to follow. The entire system of discipline is broken. We provide negative consequences to bad behavior and we call those consequences discipline. The true definition of discipline is far greater than negative consequences.

A discipline is a practice, a lifestyle, an act of faithfulness. It is a way to better ones life. In my previous post I wrote about discipline and a call to obedience to the call God has placed on our lives. Many people have been asking what does a disciplined life look like? If it is not about punishment or negative consequences, then what is it really about? The answer to these questions are not concrete, there is a multitude of different means to achieve the end of a disciplined life. But here are some steps that I try and uses to bring discipline to my daily life.

What are my priorities? These are concrete priorities that are the same everyday, each day we have different priorities but what are the ones that mean the most and need to be practiced daily.
What is the larger picture? What is the bigger calling in your life that you would like to achieve?
What are you doing today to achieve that goal?
Do your best at everything you do.
Do it. Tell yourself that you will do these things, begin to make a habit of it.

If you desire to pray and read the bible daily, and you find that you do not have the time to fit it into your day, yet you are waking up 5 min before class to go to class, consider waking up sooner. Allow yourself to take a shower, get cleaned up, read and pray for a few minuets. This will help you become more disciplined in three areas of your life just by waking up an hour earlier. You will be taking care of your physical self by showering, you will help your spiritual life by incorporating prayer and bible readings in your day, and you actually be awake for class, instead of feeling crappy as your brain cells click on in the morning. These are baby steps but they are necessary steps into becoming a disciplined person.

The next steps look are not as physically tangible as waking up early and doing some things, these disciplines are mental and require a conscious effort to transform your mind. Say you have a really hard time gossiping about people or being overly critical of every circumstance, and you would like to see this behavior change. First pray then act. Be conscious of the words the come from your mouth, if you feel the urge or you realize that you are gossiping about someone while in the middle of the act, stop yourself, change the topic or walk away from the conversation. Same thing with being critical, if you feel like you need to say something to ‘correct’ something, discipline yourself to wait a day before addressing the situation to see if what you are being critical is true, or just a reflection of your feelings at the moment.

We need to begin to look at disciplines, as a hope, as a tool, as a way to live a life that is more pleasing to God. It is going to take work, it is not going to be easy. There will be many times it does not seem worth it to keep practicing the same daily disciplines because it feels like too much of a sacrifice, or no one even notices the change in your life, but the thing is, is that we do not practice disciplines for others or even ourselves, we practice them for the King of the universe. We choose to remain obedient to the disciplines of God for his purposes, so that he may use us to his full potential. When we choose not to live a disciplined life we are not offering God our best our first fruits, these things he calls evil.

There is not much glory, much fame, or excitable gain from living disciplined, it may even look like saying no to something we truly desire to do but we know that God has called us a different direction, it may look like sacrificing everything, it may look like pain, but God is looking forward to tell us Welcome Home Good and Faithful Servant. The problem with today is that we have lost what it truly means to be faithful, to seek his commands, to practice righteous living. We are not going to be successful all the time. When people practice they do make mistakes, not every shot goes in, not every rebound is made, and sometimes we may even fall an break a bone. I am not making excuses. I HATE it when people say, oh were only human, as if it is a qualifier to sin boldly, but what I am saying is that disciplines are a practice, a practice you have to choose to attend. When world class athletes practice they breakdown and analyze each part of their game, they practice the fundaments over and over and over again until it is near perfect. May I suggest that we have forgotten the fundaments, we take Allen Iverson’s approach to practice, and we are just concerned with playing the game, and the way we have been playing the game is ‘good enough’ Let me challenge you to get back to practice, re-learn the fundamentals because our lives have taken on the muscle memory of a broken cycle. It will feel awkward at first, it will feel mundane for a while, but after each practice you will be able to push yourself a little further, and someday we will be winning the Gold for Christ and lucky for us we have the best coaching staff in the world.

Dangerous Living-It's closer than you think.

Are you looking to live a dangerous life for Christ? Are you asking yourself, What am I doing with my life? Am I really where God wants me to be? Am I really living a dangerous life FOR Christ? Do you find yourself wanting to be closer to God, but just cannot find away how? Are you close to God but you think you could be doing more? Do you listen to sermons about how God is not safe, and you imagine selling all of your things and following Christ? Are you thinking that it would be nice to get college over with so you could just get on with your life, and finally start living for God as a youth, or worship pastor? Are you thinking about just quitting college all together to join the ministry? Do you feel it would serve YOU better if YOU were somewhere else? Do you find yourself not caring about your classes? Do you think that you have to do something radical, like visit Africa, or Haiti, just so you feel like you had a spiritual adventure?

As the questions unfold is it not interesting how, they become more about us and less about God. How we managed to move from living dangerously for Christ to just living...dangerously. As college students we find ourselves asking these questions daily. We wonder what we are doing with our lives, questioning if college at Spring Arbor was the right choice. Is this where God really wants me?

I find that the answer to that question is affirmed in many ways in a very negative light. We hear of ministries and opportunity opening up all around the world. We find ourselves dissatisfied with the spiritual atmosphere of Spring Arbor and we think, there must be more than this, there just must be. We look other experiences, such as trips to Mexico, Africa, and now Haiti, to be the answer to our idea of more than this. We read books that tell us we could be doing better as a Christian, and they leave us convicted. They leave us with a fantasy of selling all that we have and just living fully and completely on the provision of God. That somehow ministry somewhere other than here is greater, than if it were executed here. These books tell us we need to stop being comfortable, strive towards danger, and that we do not have enough faith until we do something radical for Christ. We are told to stop being American, and start living only for God’s Kingdom. We are told to give up everything take up the cross, spread peace and love. To this some have given up their college career while others remain feeling guilty that they did not have the faith to give their all for Christ.

Now I want to warn my reader that I am being critical. Thus Whacking the Hive. Mission trips to foreign countries are great, I know many close friends that have been called into that type of ministry and for them not to go would be an act of disobedience to their calling. But that calling is specific to them and not to all people. Just because everything is permissible does not mean all things are beneficial. I am tired of people coming in and telling Christ following college students to stop following the status quo, shake things up and be radically on fire for Christ. (Can we all ways get more on fire for Christ--yes, can we always go closer in our faith--yes, but this is not my point.) When these people come in trying to inspire us they end up accomplishing the opposite. We feel guilty, shameful, worthless, and fearful, because we are not sure if we are read willing or even have enough faith to drop out of school and join a free loving nomadic Christian community. What is conveyed is not conviction but accusations.

I would like to propose that we have a skewed perspective of ‘radical’ and ‘dangerous’ living for Christ. Our lives as University students are a lot more radical and dangerous than we want to let on to. Lets take a closer look at our lives for example. Most of us are broke. We do not have much money to spend on luxuries, most of us do not even have a job, and we invest over $100,000 into our education here at Spring Arbor. We live in community where two to three people share a 10’x15’ living space, and over 30 people can comprise an entire floor. We invest in relationships that may or may not last longer than 4 years, we eat over priced mass produced food, we spend hours in class, and even more in the library writing papers and studying for exams. Who would honestly choose to like this way for any amount of time let alone four to eight years? Its dangerous, its radical, its revolutionary. We do not know if we will be able to pay back the school once we get out, some of us bankrupt ourselves just to say another semester. What would cause people to do something so crazy so risky so dangerous, where we are willing to risk our finical security?

The problem is that we do not think or feel that college is dangerous. Yet remember back when you were applying for colleges trying to decide where you wanted to go, and then remember the parting at the plaza and how scary that was even if you didn’t let on to it. College is dangerous, it is just we have been here so long we have become desensitized to the dangers of college. The same thing happens when we begin to learn how to drive. Driving is dangerous, we are whizzing around the world at 60, 70, 80 mph like it is nothing, but remember getting behind the wheel for the first time and 45 mph seemed too fast. Feel college is a lot like that. Driving is not less dangerous than it was before, its just we have become used to living in the danger we become accustomed to it. There are so many situations in our life where we forget just how dangerous our lives really are.

When someone is working in an occupation that is dangerous, they take extra care, extra caution, and safety is always first. When they forget that their job is dangerous, and they think they have it all under control or they do their job flippantly, they can get hurt, they can even lose their lively hood. Just think about it, mismanage funds, scholarships and grades, you could be missing out on the livelihood God has planned and called you to live. It is dangerous being a college student. It requires work. It requires sacrifice. It requires obedience. It requires discipline.

The problem is, is that we do not treat college dangerous at all, we are the furthest thing away from discipline. We dead class and homework. We hate it. We do not want to do it. We want the easy professors, with the least amount of work, we hardly ever read the material, and we show up to class when we want. Yet in doing all this we still aspire to be teachers, pastors, and other leading professionals in our field. Yet there is nothing professional about the way we live our lives as college students, yet we want to jump right into ministry or our occupation without first being educated.

There is a difference between living dangerously for Christ and just living dangerously. Take for example going to college when you are called to go to be at home to care for your family. All of a sudden choosing to stay in college changes from living dangerously for Christ to just living dangerously. The same can be true for the college student that chooses to drop out of school and start a well intentioned ministry when Christ is calling us to stay in school. The ministry is now living dangerously instead of living dangerously for Christ. he student is living dangerously and they are also placing everyone they teach in danger. There are strict biblical standards on those who teach, ones that should make us shake in fear. It is not something that we can do ill equipped.

The point that I am trying to make is that living dangerously for Christ is more than just seeking dangerous experiences, because in the end dangerous experiences will seem to become normal, there will be nothing that quite satisfies, why do you think people like Travis Pastrana has to keep pushing the limits to just get off. Yet when we life dangerously for Christ we will be rewarded, we will be filled, we will be nourished.

How do we live dangerously for Christ? Patients. Obedience. Discipline.

Christ is to be the author and prefecture of our faith, we are to lay ourselves down and let him guide us. So if we are called to a position that requires training towards a degree to obtain said position we are to do all that is required to acquire the correct training. We are called to do everything as on to the Lord. We need to start living disciplined lives. We need to strive for excellence in all that we do, especially in our school work. We need to show up for class, join the discussion in class, and read the required texts. We should seek to take the difficult professors. We can come up with all types of excuses not to do any one of these things, but the truth is if we do not start doing these things you are not living dangerously for Christ, you are just living dangerously, and that is unacceptable. The bible even goes as far as to call it pure evil.

So please consider that the time you spend in college is worth it, it is far more dangerous than we realize. The only way to become a righteous person is to be brought up and trained up in righteousness, one cannot wake up one day drop everything they were doing and join a righteous community and call themselves righteous, just as we cannot quit school, join a ministry and call ourselves a pastor. We need to be trained before we can go. God has prepared you for a time such as this. For a time of becoming, a time of training, a time of growing up and maturing in the faith, a time of learning. Be faithful, be obedient, be disciplined, you want to sacrifice yourself for the kingdom. Go to class, do your work, live in excellence.

Join me today in living a dangerous disciplined life. One worth of praise for Our King, THE KING!

Seekers

Seekers. We are all seekers of some form or another. Some seek possessions others titles. Today I stand before a group of peers who are all seeking to become something someday. We are seeking to become doctors, artists, ministers, musicians, husbands, wives, mother and father. We are at a point in our lives were we desire these things the most. How do I know this? How much time do we spend trying to get there? The number of hours spent in class, doing homework, and practicing all prove that we are willing to sacrifice 4 years of our life an 100,000 dollars just to find what we are seeking.

The problem with seeking out these positions is that we tend to miss the years of sacrifice required to become what we are seeking after. We look ahead at the prize and remove ourselves from the present reality we are living in and we create a fictitious fabrication of future reality. And in this future reality we have obtained all of these things. We have earned the degree, we have the spouse of our dreams, we are working at a place with in our major, the world seems almost perfect. I do no know how many people I have talked to that state, I cannot wait until I am done with school married and settled down, because then everything will be alright.

Then when we get all that we desire for now new desires come in and fill our time, we begin to seek to have children, further ourselves in our career, see our children graduate, we retire, we relax, and we watch our children do it all over again. What worries me is that within all of this seeking and dreaming we become disconnected with reality, and when we are finally on that beach and we look back on the life we have lived we will be dissatisfied because we will realize that we missed life, that we were so concerned with seeking tomorrow that we will have missed today.

What makes us think this? What makes us believe that tomorrow will be better than today? That makes us believe that once I am married and settled down my problems will despair? We deal with this though process even as a child. I can always remembering looking forward towards high school and then college. Honestly life has only gotten more complicated since starting school. I believe that what it comes down to is what we are seeking. Yes we are seeking degrees and families but more than that we truly seek a place free from the current pain we are facing today. Is it bad to seek family and education and careers, absolutely not, the danger comes in living entirely for tomorrow that we miss the beauty of today. And if we are always looking towards tomorrow we will never see the beauty of today.

We are seekers and although we maybe seeking out matters today that are essential for tomorrow, I feel that we are truly seekers to the questions of what does love really look like? What does the pain I feel today matter to the people around me? What do I matter? What is truly worth living for? What does Joy look like? And in our fantasies about tomorrow these questions are answered these desires are met. Yet in reality there will always be a certain amount of suffering in this life. So these questions remain. And of course the typical Sunday school answer applies to the answers of all of these questions Jesus.

Jesus, has become just as vague of an answer to these questions as any other. What does it mean to love, look to Jesus. Who cares about me, Jesus does. What do I matter, according to Jesus, everything. What is worth living for, the mission of Jesus. And What does real joy look like, none other than Jesus on the cross. And it is true that Jesus is the answer to all of these questions what does this really mean. What does Jesus caring about me look like? How do I feel Jesus’ love? How do I live for Jesus? And How do I have Joy when my life feels like a living hell?

The problem with answering these questions with just Jesus leaves us at a place where we try and grasp at the spiritual presence of Jesus that is somewhere out there. We cry out prayers in our rooms weeping at the disparity of our situation and pain, we hope that there is a Jesus out there listening and we hope we can feel his presence, but what do we do when that feeling never comes? What do we do when we have cried our last tear and we still feel just as empty and alone as when we started? Has the Jesus answer failed us? NO! Is our crying out in vain, NO!

Jesus fully knows us read psalm 139 to see the extent he knows us. Since Christ knows us full well, we can be confident that he will answer our cries. Astonishingly, though the answers to our cries will most likely not come from divine touch of immediate feel-goodness. I am not saying that God cannot answer our prayers in this way, for many experience peace while praying to God, yet this peace is normally fleeting, and healing normally does not transcend from temporary peace but peace transcends from healing.

Let me suggest that at this point we have not utilized the full of Christ. We often forget that, the Church is Christ’s current earthly indwelling. That his spirit resides in each and everyone of his believers, and it is through these believers the spirit speaks. Matthew states that when one or two gather I am with them. Christ is present in community. It is through the body of Christ that we get to experience Christ. Most Christians understand the concept of when they give the hungary food they are in essence feeding Christ. How is it then, I ask that we do not realize that when Christ asks us to confess our sins to him he literally meant each other since we are in essence Christ. We are considered little anointed ones or little Christ's. So many people I talk with say that they have given their problems over to christ and that they are trusting in his guidance, but how many of them have discussed their problems with Christ in community.

What does this then mean for the community of believers? It sounds like it means a lot more than just meeting to sing some songs and listen to someone speak. Its sounds like a movement to me. A movement of people to be Christ for others only through the grace of Christ living and speaking through them. And if it is to be Christ speaking through us and not us speaking what does this mean again for the believers? Its sounds more like a serious responsibility to be a believer knowing that he or she will be held accountable to what they say. It sounds like we better know what Christ is like if we are to live like Christ. It sounds like a call to faithfulness. A call to seek his face. We are all seekers here and when we are seeking a place free from pain, a place full of love and joy, we are truly seeking Christ kingdom today.

Seeking Christ’s kingdom will require work, it will require detection and it will require sacrifice, sacrifice included further suffering, but when I look at the church it was a place far from being free from suffering. Yet it was a place where people knew that they were loved, it was a place that was safe, it was place where everyone had each others back. It didn’t matter what you looked like what you dressed like or what you had to bring to the table. These people did more than have a religious service, they lived together worked together served each other, their kids played games with each other and there community grew.

They reached out to the culture around them, not by toeing the line with culture, but by living counter cultural. When everyone was having sex with everyone else they abstained, when people placed their babies in the woods to die (first century abortion) instead of protesting (which would have resulted in death), they would rescue them? Is this not the movement we are looking for in the today? Is this not what we yearn to see in our churches today? Where does this movement originate from? Faithfulness. Genuineness. Authenticity. Are not these the words we hear tossed around in the movement today?

When we pray to be loved, when we cry out to God in the private place, when we yearn for reconciliation, let us also ask the spirit how we can be the answer to these requests for someone else, because someone some where near is praying the same prayer. Remember we are the body of Christ, and when Christ answers prayers and meets needs he normally uses his body. Prayer is not passive where I ask God to meet all my needs, but it is active where we present our needs to God and respond by meeting the needs for others. Many ask for safe travel during the holidays, be that safe driver not for yourself but to be apart of the prayer. Many ask for reconciled relationships, seek out reconciliation in relationships in which debts have not yet been forgiven.

We can talk about changing the world we can sit on our knees and blabber on about how we desire a movement, but until we begin to become actively involved in the movement we are left with nothing less then good intentions. Join me today and make your prays active and alive, seeking the face of God, and begin a life in faithfulness. When intentions turn into desire action will begin to take place. A life of faithfulness is not a flashy one full of power and status, many things go unnoticed, but the real life difference will begin to shine through your live and the ones around you. When we seek God, we are accepting truth, we are accepting reality, and as long as today is called to today we are not to let our hearts be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (Heb 3:15). We are all seekers, what are you seeking? Truth or deceitfulness?